Technical Field
The present disclosure generally relates to electronic commerce and, more particularly, relates to methods and systems for dynamic detection of geo-location obfuscation in client-server connections through an IP tunnel.
Related Art
An IP (Internet Protocol) tunnel may be described as an IP network communications channel between two networks. An IP tunnel may be used to transport packets of another network protocol by encapsulating the packets of the other protocol using IP. IP tunnels are often used for connecting two disjoint IP networks that don't have a native routing path to each other, via an underlying routable protocol across an intermediate transport network. In conjunction with the IPsec protocol suite IP tunnels may be used to create a virtual private network (VPN) between two or more private networks across a public network such as the Internet. Another use for IP tunnels is to connect islands of IPv6 installations across the IPv4 Internet.
A user of a client device may have various motivations for obfuscating the client device's geo-location by using an IP tunnel when connecting to a server. In a typical scenario, a client user might like to obfuscate the client's true internet protocol (IP) address from the server for purposes of privacy and anonymity, and may, thus, employ spoofing of IP-geo location mechanisms and IP classification on the server side. The client user's motivations may include, for example, 1) gaining access to services that are not allowed in certain locations (e.g., certain movie and television content providers); 2) browsing server data while maintaining a higher level of anonymity; and 3) performing fraudulent actions on the server, as the obfuscating IP address may allow for spoofing of risk geo-location and IP classification mechanisms on the server side.
An IP tunnel can provide a means of evading detection by legacy (e.g., conventional) IP obfuscation detection mechanisms, which provide detection of HTTP/HTTPS/TCP proxies. Such conventional detection may be achieved by establishing a direct transmission control protocol (TCP) connection between the client and the server which is relayed by the tunnel service.
Commercial solutions for IP tunneling detection rely heavily on static lists of IP addresses which are known to belong to IP tunneling providers or malware bots, or are openly published in underground forums. Collecting these lists is done by data mining and extraction techniques. The accuracy and coverage rely on the quality and the update frequency of the static lists, and deteriorate over time.
The included drawings are for illustrative purposes and serve only to provide examples of possible systems and methods for the disclosed methods and system for providing detailed, prompt consumer ratings feedback to merchants and also providing information useable in real time back to the consumer. These drawings in no way limit any changes in form and detail that may be made to that which is disclosed by one skilled in the art without departing from the spirit and scope of this disclosure.